


choices

by Wolfsbane



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-07-15 21:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7239958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsbane/pseuds/Wolfsbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sudden visitor and an unpleasant situation forces Peggy to confront her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Peggy had only just set her purse down on her desk when Barbie, her new secretary, bounded into the room carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a small notebook in the other. Her long shiny blonde hair trailed behind her.

“Good morning, Mrs Rizzo!” she chirped. Barbie was always cheery. She had worked for Peggy for three months now and she had never seen her without a smile on her face. “Did you enjoy your honeymoon?”

“It’s still Ms. Olson, Barbie,” Peggy corrected her. “But it was wonderful, thank you.”

“You’re so lucky,” Barbie said, sighing wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.”

“It’s good to finally be back at work though,” Peggy said. “What do I have on today?”

“You have a meeting with Mr Leary at ten and Mr Draper wants to have lunch with you,” Barbie answered, checking her notebook. “Oh, and I just got a call from reception. There's a woman here who wants to meet with you."

“Who is it?”

“Her name is Mrs Mary Hannigan,” Barbie answered, reading from her notebook. “She says she needs to talk to you about something important. Do you know her?”

Peggy wracked her brain trying to remember if she had ever met anyone named Mary Hannigan. Her mother had a friend named Marjorie O’Hanigan, though she hadn’t spoken to the woman in years. She was probably long dead.

“Never heard of her. Get her phone number and I'll call her later.”

“I offered but she says she needs to speak with you face-to-face as soon as possible.”

If this were any other day Peggy would have asked Barbie to take a message and order the woman away. However, spending two weeks traipsing around Paris with Stan had put her in a jubilant mood that still hadn’t diminished, even after a ten hour flight.

“Send her up. I have some time before my meeting.”

Barbie turned and left the room, humming a song Peggy vaguely remembered hearing on the radio. She sat down at her desk, sipped her coffee, and wondered, not for the first time, if Barbie had been secretly manufactured by Mattel as a revolutionary new toy and had her prototype unleashed on the unsuspecting halls of McCann Erickson. Barbie somehow looked exactly like the doll that shared her name. That couldn't be a coincidence. She was starting to imagine how she would market such a product when a middle-aged brunette woman appeared in her doorframe.

“Are you Margaret Olson?” she asked softly, nervously playing with the strap of her bag.

She was around her sister’s age, possibly a few years older. Her brown hair was set in a bun and she was dressed in a light pink skirt suit. She wouldn’t have looked out-of-place amongst the crowd at her mother's church.

“Yes,” Peggy answered, standing up and walking over to greet the woman. She stuck out her hand. “You must be Mrs Hannigan.”

Mrs Hannigan moved forward for a handshake but stopped as soon as she got a good look at Peggy’s face. Her eyes widened.

“Oh my,” she said breathlessly.

“Are you okay?” Peggy asked, confused.

“Oh, uh, it’s nothing,” Mrs Hannigan said quickly. She laughed awkwardly.

“Take a seat,” Peggy gestured to her couch. “Can I offer you a drink? Coffee maybe?”

“No, thank you,” Mrs Hannigan answered. She sat down, though not without taking a long nervous glance at Bert Cooper’s old painting. Peggy sat opposite her, placing her half-drunk cup of coffee on the table in front of her. Mrs Hannigan’s eyes lingered on her left hand. “Oh, you’re married?”

“I’m a newlywed,” Peggy said, beaming as she inspected the ring on her finger. “Two weeks. I just got back from my honeymoon.”

“Oh, congratulations!” Mrs Hannigan smiled slightly. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.”

“Thank you.” The two women sat in silence for several moments. “My secretary said you had something important you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Uh, yes.” Mrs Hannigan laughed nervously. “Yes, I do.”

The older woman opened her mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. She started playing the strap of bag again, clearly anxious about something.

“Mrs Hannigan, I’m very busy and I really don’t have time for-”

"Did you give birth to a baby boy in 1960?"


	2. Chapter 2

It took several moments for Peggy to fully comprehend the question she had just been asked. She opened her mouth to answer but nothing came out. There was an intense pressure growing in her chest.

“It is you,” Mrs Hannigan said, smiling slightly. “I knew it. You have the same eyes.”

“Who are you?” Peggy asked, finally regaining the ability to speak.

“I’m his mother.”

“Oh.”

Peggy stood up and shakily walked over to her desk. She opened the door and frantically searched for a cigarette.  She had resolved to quit smoking after her honeymoon and had thrown out the pack she kept in her purse. It was a move she had come to reget.

“Is there anything you want to ask me?” Mrs Hannigan asked, watching her curiously.

Peggy finally found an old pack of Marlboros and a box of matches hidden under some rough sketches for a Chevalier campaign from years ago. She sat down, lit the cigarette, and took a drag. Her mind was still spinning.

“What’s his name?” she asked, instinctively going with the first question that came into her head.

“Richard,” Mrs Hannigan answered. “Richard John Hannigan. We named him after my father.”

Peggy instantly regretted asking her question. That little boy, who had previously only existed as a hazy memory of a nurse holding a wriggling bundle of blankets, suddenly became a real person. She’d worked so hard to come to grips with her decision to give him up. She had everything under control and then someone decided to drop an atomic bomb on her, just when everything in her life was going so well.

“I can’t believe I finally found you,” Mrs Hannigan continued. “My husband and I started looking over a year ago. We went to the adoption agency and they refused to tell us anything, so we hired a private investigator. We finally got your name by bribing someone at the hospital.”

“Why are you here?”

“Well,” Mrs Hannigan began, taking a deep, nervous breath. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Richie has leukemia.”

The words hit Peggy like a ton of bricks. The pressure in her chest grew bigger.

“Oh,” Peggy croaked. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, actually, this is the fourth time he’s had it. He’s relapsed three times since he was diagnosed a few years ago. We’ve tried everything we can think of but the cancer keeps coming back. We have one more option. And that’s what we need your help with.”

“What is it?”

“A bone marrow transplant,” Mrs Hannigan said. “The donation needs to come from a relative. Ideally that would be a full brother or a sister, but the doctors say it's possible there could be a suitable donor elsewhere in the family.”

“You mean you want me to be a donor?” Peggy asked.

“We need to test you first. I admit the chances of you being a suitable match are still low. And even if you are, there’s no guarantee it will work.” Mrs Hannigan paused and stared down at her shoes, as if she was doing her best to hold back tears. “But I will do anything to save my son. We waited for him for so long. I don’t know what I would do if I lost him.”

Mrs Hannigan looked back up at her, a hopeful expression forming on her face. Peggy’s mind was hazy and she was still in a state of shock. What was she supposed to say? She couldn’t make a decision like that now. Her whole body felt numb and her chest was so tight it felt like her heart was about to burst out.

“I need time to think about this,” Peggy said, standing up and walking to her desk. Her legs felt like they were made of jelly. “I’m sorry, but this is too much to take in right now.”

“Oh.” Mrs Hannigan’s face fell. “Of course, I understand."

“Thank you.”

Mrs Hannigan took out a small notepad and a pen from her purse. She frantically scribbled something down and handed it to Peggy.

“This is our phone number,” she said. “I’m usually home all day so you can call anytime.”

“I will,” Peggy promised, shoving the phone number into a pocket of her purse. “I can have my secretary walk you to the elevator if you’d like.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Mrs Hannigan assured her. She stood up and started walking out of the room. When she got to the door, she turned and looked back at Peggy.  “Miss Olson, I know this must be a shock for you, but I’m not sure how much time we have left.”

Peggy collapsed onto her couch. She grasped an unopened bottle of Jameson from her bar table, unscrewed the lid, and took a long swig.


	3. Chapter 3

Peggy had done her best to put the situation out of her mind, though Stan had immediately noticed there was something wrong when he met her in the lobby after they both finished work that evening. She brushed him off when he initially asked her on the way home and brushed him off again during dinner. It wasn’t until they were cuddled up on the couch watching Johnny Carson together that he finally forced it out of her.

“So what are you gonna do?” he asked as he laid a comforting hand on her knee.

“I don’t know,” Peggy said. “I mean, obviously I’m going to get tested. It’s just…”

“What is it?” Stan prodded gently.

“I wish she hadn’t told me,” Peggy admitted. “That sounds awful, I know. But what if I’m not a match and he dies?”

“At least you did what you could,” Stan reasoned. “It won’t be your fault. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I remember walking past a group of kids playing in the park a few years ago. I caught myself thinking about him. It hit me that he could have been in that group. That was the first time I thought about him without wanting to drink a bottle of whiskey,” Peggy told him. “It know it’s selfish, but I was so happy believing he was just a normal happy, healthy kid.”

“But he’s not,” Stan gently reminded her. “He’s sick and he needs your help.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to meet him,” Peggy admitted. "I feel guilty just saying that, but it's true."

Stan looked over at the television, his brow furrowed deep in thought.

“Maybe you don’t have to see him,” he suggested finally.

“What do you mean?” Peggy blinked.

“His parents might not even want you to meet him,” Stan pointed out. “Does he even know he’s adopted?”

“I don’t know,” Peggy admitted. “I should have asked.”

"So get tested,” Stan said. “If it’s a match, you can give a donation and move on with your life."

"But what if this is my only chance to get to know him,” Peggy said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Even if I am a match, he could still die."

"We'll deal with that later,” Stan said decisively. “First things first, we’ll get you tested. Then we’ll go from there"  


Peggy nodded and reached for Stan’s hand. He was right. He was always right.

“So are you going to tell Pete?” Stan asked.

"No,” Peggy said firmly. “The less people I drag into this the better. We haven’t even talked about it since I first told him.”

“He could be a match,” Stan pointed out. “He has a kid right? What about her?”

“No, that’s out of the question,” Peggy said. “He and Trudy looked so happy when I saw them at the wedding. I don’t want to destroy that.”

“Maybe she already knows,” Stan pointed out. He dug deep into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Peggy eyed the cigarettes hungrily.

“Give me one of those.”

“I thought you said you were quitting.” Stan smirked as he handed the pack over to his wife.

“That was before this happened,” Peggy said.

An awful thought suddenly crossed her mind.

“Jesus,” she said, taking a drag of her cigarette. “Oh. Jesus Christ.”

”What is it?”

“What if I did something to cause it?” Peggy asked. “When I was pregnant?”

“Peggy, it’s not your fault,” Stan said. He switched the television off with the remote.

“I smoked,” Peggy said. “I drank. A lot. And I was on the pill the entire time.”

“It’s not your fault,” Stan repeated. "You didn't even know you were pregnant. Even then, you were hardly the only pregnant woman doing that stuff back then."

Stan stubbed his cigarette out and tossed the remains into the silver ashtray (a wedding gift from Joan) on the coffee table. He stood up and held out his hand to help Peggy up.

“Come on, you’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I guess so," Peggy murmured as she deposited her own cigarette into the ashtray.

She followed Stan into the bedroom, changed into her nightgown, and climbed into bed with him. Stan fell asleep quickly, snoring softly as lay on his side with his hand lightly touching Peggy’s stomach. Peggy tried to follow his lead, but her mind was too filled with thoughts and worries.


End file.
